Haggai 1:2 The House of YHWH

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Well, good morning everybody. Let me turn on my mic so you can hear me here. It's a blessing to see everybody here today and to open up the book of Haggai like we did last week with one another.
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I've been really encouraged by this text as I've been studying and preparing for the messages that we are going to be going over in this book.
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Again, it's this really, really short book that we have here in the Old Testament. And I hope that the theology, the deepness of it, is not one of shortness for us.
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I hope that we can apply much of the text here to our own understanding of God and how we are to live and behave in the church today, in the house of God today.
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Before we read the text that we're going to be in today, we are going to be in Haggai chapter 1 verse 2 today.
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We're going to finish what we were talking about last week and we're just going to continue on through the text. Let us go ahead and just lift up a prayer though to God.
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Lord, I do thank you so much, Lord, for the opportunity to be a vessel, to be vessels amongst one another,
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Lord, to be able to do things for your glory, God. I thank you for this. And Lord, I do pray that as in your house there's many different types of vessels,
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Lord God, that we would be those willing vessels to do things for your glory. That we would not just be hearers, but we would be doers of everything that you command us to do,
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Lord. That we would love your law, that we would love to honor you, that we would love to give service to you. Lord, I do thank you so much to look at this room and call one another family,
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Lord. God, I just pray that you would help encourage us that not only are we in your house,
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Lord, but we are family members of your house. We are brothers and sisters, Lord. And God, I just pray that we would have a deepening of love towards you, more focused adoration throughout our weeks,
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Lord. God, I do just want to lift up those children again. God, as the mothers and the fathers in this room,
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Lord, the grandparents and the grandpas and the grandmas, Lord, that we can just continue to help honor you by raising these children up in your name.
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Lord, we just say these things wanting your will to be done in them and that you would receive all the glory in them.
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We just say this in your name. Amen. So Haggai, chapter 1, verse 2.
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Let us go ahead and read this text for us today. I will not read verse 1 just because there's some hard names in there and I'm going to just stutter in there.
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So please look at it. You'll understand why I'm just going to verse 2 for today. But verse 2, it says this,
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Thus says the Lord of hosts, This people says,
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The time has not come, even the time for the house of the
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Yahweh, the Lord, to be rebuilt. That's the only text that we're going to be in today.
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So let us go ahead and pray. Lord God, I do thank you for this lovely verse that we have here.
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Lord, I thank you for the expression of the words that are in here, the meanings, the history behind these things.
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And Lord, I do thank you so much for you speaking through your prophet Haggai, Lord. God, I do pray that we would understand more about you today through this text, that we had praised you as the builder of your house, the builder of your temple.
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And Lord, let us not look anywhere else, but onto your cross. Let us see the lamb that was pierced.
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Let us recognize the high priest that has made intercession for us. And let us recognize you and praise you as the king that is over us,
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Lord. God, we just would ask these things to be so according to your will.
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And Lord God, that you would, again, just receive praise and glory and worship from even this short text that we have here before us.
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Lord, I do say these things in your holy name, Jesus the Christ, that prophet, priest, and king.
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Amen. So, just as a reminder from last week where we have been, why we've come to this book, we are in the year 520
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BC, the people of Israel being in captivity to Babylon for roughly 70 years have been released in 539 -537
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BC. And now in 520 BC, we see that the only thing that they have done since receiving that declaration to go back and to build the city, to build the temple from Cyrus, the only thing that they have done thus far for the
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Lord is they have built the foundation of the temple. 20 -ish years have gone by and that is all that they have done.
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So, as a reminder, what we are dealing with right now is a people that are putting their priorities, their needs, what they perceive as their needs, above what the
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Lord has commanded them to do. And so they have delayed in this way. They have not obeyed
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God. And that is the context for what this is going on in this text right here.
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Now, that being said, I want you to realize the importance of the book of Haggai here. And we are going to discuss this the entirety of the way that we go through these two chapters of this book.
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Is that Haggai, after that this prophecy has been given, guess when the temple is finished and completed?
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In 515 BC. Did the Lord accomplish that which He wanted to have done through the prophet of Haggai?
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Absolutely. It was an encouragement. It was directly going to the people of Israel and they were doing that which
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God was commanding them because this cut them to the deep. It cut them to their hearts and they realized that they were in the wrong in this text.
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And so this is, again, this is an encouraging text for us and I hope we have a plethora of application of how we, as God's people today, can go about doing
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God's will and God's commands. Here in verse 2, before we start in verse 2,
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I do want to look at verse 1 here for a moment. There was something that I had mentioned last week that I want to help us develop a little bit better for us today.
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And that is those three offices of Christ that we spoke of last week. As we see in verse 1 that this prophet
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Haggai, that's the first office, the first position that we have in here. The prophet
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Haggai is writing this letter, which is the word of the Lord. He's writing the word of the
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Lord and he's giving it to the son of a governor and the son of a priest.
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And so we see, again, we see those three offices. We see prophet, priest, and king.
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And not only this, but we see the son of those things as well. These are all typologically pointing us to the better and superior, the one that is above and better than those things.
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That is Jesus the Christ, the son of God, the son of man, the true prophet, the true king, and the true priest.
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And so what I want to do here real fast for us is to help us understand where this temple is pointing us towards.
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We have to remember that this was written prior to the cross. This is a people that have not heard the words of Christ, that have not had them recorded for them in His incarnation.
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This is the word of Christ, because Christ is God, so don't let us think too far on that. But in the
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New Testament, they have yet to see these things, and so they're looking forward unto the Messiah, God Himself coming and paying the price for sins.
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And so, we now have the superior, we have the substance of what those shadows reflected for us.
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And so what I want us to do is to help us understand this rule, this office of prophet, priest, and king.
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I want to just quickly read three portions of text real fast to help us understand how
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Christ is the fulfillment of these. So we first have in verse 1, the prophet Haggai, prophet, this office.
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I'm going to turn to John chapter 12, verse 49. John chapter 12, verse 49.
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John chapter 12, verse 49. Now, you might ask, what is a prophet?
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Now that is a proper question to ask. In a short definition of what a prophet is, a prophet is someone who reveals
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God and teaches the people. It was a specific position that was called for in the
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Old Testament, as we see the requirements of what a prophet is in Deuteronomy chapter 13, and Deuteronomy chapter 18.
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Now, how is Christ a prophet? Well, in John chapter 12, verse 49, it says this,
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For I did not speak on my own initiative, but the
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Father himself who sent me has given me a command, what to say and what to speak.
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Did Jesus Christ reveal the words and God to the people that he was before?
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Absolutely. Every word that Jesus Christ spoke was a word that the Father commanded him to speak. We would understand this also from the book of Hebrews, that in the former days, the
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Lord God was revealed through the prophets, but in this day, in these last days, he has given us this through the
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Son, that the Son is the authoritative word in this way. So, Christ is a prophet. He's called a prophet in Matthew 13, 57, which we won't go and read right now.
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But a prophet is one who reveals God and teaches the people. Christ has fulfilled this.
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Haggai 1, verse 1, we would then see the next position would be that of a king, a ruler, somebody that is over the people, one that the people should be subject unto.
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So, in that way, how is Christ the king? First, we need to define what is a king?
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A king is someone who rules and reigns over a people.
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Okay? Somebody that rules and reigns over a people. I hope you're still in the gospel,
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John. Let us go ahead and read John chapter 18, verse 37. John chapter 18, verse 37.
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We would see in here in verse, we'll read verse 36 to 37. This is Jesus before Pontius Pilate.
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Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting that I might not be delivered up to the
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Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here, is not of this realm. Verse 37 says,
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Pilate therefore said to him, so you are a king. And Jesus said, you say correctly that I am a king.
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For this I have been born and for this I have come into the world to bear witness of the truth.
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Everyone of the truth hears my voice. Is Christ a king?
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Absolutely. Well, then the question must be asked, who does he rule and reign over?
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Because a king has to rule and reign over a people. I hope that you in your heart and in your mouth and your eyes and your ears and your hands and everything that you say, you utter
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Christ is king. He is king over you. He has made you subject underneath his feet.
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What is the third office that we would see here in Haggai chapter 1, verse 1? Is that of the high priest, a priest.
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Again, what is the question that we have to ask? What is a priest? What is a purpose of a priest in the Old Testament?
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A priest offers a sacrifice to God on behalf of the people.
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Okay. Where would we see that Christ is our priest? Hebrews chapter 9,
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Hebrews chapter 9, verse 11, Hebrews chapter 9, verse 11 says this.
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It says, but when Christ appeared as a high priest of good things to come, he entered through the more or the greater and the more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation.
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Now we could read the entirety of the book of Hebrews as we've talked about in the Bible study. It uses that language over and over and over again, that Christ is the better high priest, that Christ is this priest after the order of Melchizedek, that he is above and superior than all previous priests.
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So what are those three offices, the definitions of them again? A prophet is one that reveals the will of God and teaches a people.
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A priest is a one that offers a sacrifice to God for people. And then we have as a king, a king rules and reigns over a people.
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I would hope that you keep on noticing that it's always the people that it's over. It's for the people, it's to the people, it's reigning over the people.
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I hope that you understand that when we say that Christ has these three offices, that you are subject to him in these three offices.
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He has done this because you are the people. And so why do we bring this up?
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Why do we mention this when we look at the book of Haggai? Again, as all things in the
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Old Testament revealed Christ through shadows, we need to recognize the superiority of our day.
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Do we any longer say, well, the, the, let me use the word here, uh,
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Zerubbabel. Is Zerubbabel our governor? Is he our king in this way? Is he the one that we look to for our guidance?
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No, we look to Christ. We look to the better king. Do we go to the high priest and bring him a lamb any longer so that he can just offer our yearly sacrifice for us?
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No, we don't. Christ has offered himself as the final sacrifice. Christ is the better person, the better being that is in this, these three offices.
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And that's just important for us to notice here as we look here in Haggai chapter one, verse one.
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And we'll talk a little bit more about this here in just a moment when we come to verse two. So verse two, as we made mention of last week, this wording, thus says the
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Lord of hosts, thus says Yahweh of hosts, that explicit name of God, the self -existing being that has no end or beginning, that he just is, he's the self -existing one.
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And that he rules and reigns over all things that are underneath him because he is the preeminent before all things.
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All things exist because of him. Christ, Jesus, is the
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Lord of hosts, as we would see in the book of Revelation when it calls him the king of kings and the Lord of lords.
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This is an expression that Christ is above all power. So when we look here in verse two, and it says, thus says
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Yahweh of hosts, this people says, we have to recognize that this is
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God himself that is speaking here. And we have to recognize also that attribute of God that we talked about last week, that is omniscience.
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That Christ is all -knowing. No one in this room could know what I said throughout this week.
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No one in this room could know what Chad is thinking in his mind right now. God knows, though.
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God knows what I've been saying this week. God knows and knew what the people of Israel were saying in 520
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BC. He knew it. And this is where we have to be careful as creatures.
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We owe honor and obedience to God, yet we always are sinning continually before him.
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And he knows it. We can't escape this. So, what is this people saying as we are here in verse two?
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This people says, so the people of the 520 BC, the ethnic Jew, the ethnic
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Israelite that has been released from captivity underneath the hand of Babylon, the one that God has let out of this captivity through this person and being of Cyrus the king.
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How, what are these people saying? They're saying the time has not come, even the time for the house of the
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Lord to be rebuilt. The time has not come.
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These are a group of people that should have been owing God obedience immediately.
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They would be leaving a land where they suffered continually because of their captivity underneath Nebuchadnezzar.
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And now they're going back to their land and they're saying it's not yet time. We're going to delay what
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God has commanded us to do, build the temple. They're going to delay in that. And we see then, therefore, what is this as we go about in our
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Bible studies? What is one of the questions we ask? What does this teach us about man? What does this teach us about man?
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We're not obedient to God often in our lives. We like to put our priorities, our needs, our wants above that of God.
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We would see this even, even all throughout the Old Testament, all throughout the Bible. We, we as a people, even in the fall of Adam and Eve, what do they do?
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They cover themselves. They try to hide themselves. This was for themselves instead of for God.
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You see this over and over and over again. And you see this here. The people are redeemed in the sense of being left from their captivity and they don't obey
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God again. They go and do what they want and what they need to be doing for themselves. So this people says the time has not come even for the house of the
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Yahweh, the Lord to be rebuilt. Now, the question that we've been asking here in verse one, what is a prophet?
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What is a priest? What is a king? Needs to also be asked about the house of God. Why is it so important that God would have a temple be built?
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What is the purpose of the temple in the Old Testament? Why? Why is
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God so concerned about these things? And I think the first thing we need to realize when that question is asked is again, where is this at in a timeline?
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Is this before the cross or after the cross? Of course it's before the cross. So there's significance in the reason of that.
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Do we have a temple today? Are we here to serve God as priests in a temple, a physical temple today and offer sacrifices continually before him?
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No, Christ was the last sacrifice in that way. Why was the temple so important in the
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Old Testament? Well, I want to explain and think through this because if this message today, brothers and sisters,
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I hope will be an anchoring message for us as we go through the book of Haggai. I hope that you are remembering what is said today because if we fail to understand the significance of the temple, the book of Haggai means nothing to us.
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We have to remember the importance of the temple. What is the purpose of the temple?
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There's a multitude of answers for it, and I don't think we'll be able to explain and explore all the answers to this question of what is the purpose of the temple in the
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Old Testament. But I have just here a short list that we should help us understand what the temple was for in the
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Old Testament. So the Old Testament temple was the place where offerings were given to keep the people of God in a good standing through works and obedience.
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We see that when they had sinned against God, the sacrifice had to be made in order to keep themselves and the land in a good standing before God.
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They had to do these things. We would see that very, very much so all throughout the Old Testament.
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Now, what's another purpose of the temple? Well, as we know in the Gospel of John, Jesus says that if you destroy this temple,
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I'll raise it up on the third day. In John chapter 5, or John chapter 4, excuse me, he talks about that the people are not any longer going to be worshipping in Jerusalem, but will be worshipping as individuals to God.
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We will no longer go to the wilderness to do this. We'll no longer go to Jerusalem. All these things of the
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Old Testament, especially that of the temple, were pointing us to Jesus. As I said, this was prior to the cross.
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These are people that were saved the same way that you and I are saved, through faith in what?
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The Gospel. These people were saved because they had faith in Yahweh Himself and what
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He was going to do to save them. And how were they told about this? They looked to the temple, they looked to the priests, they looked to the sacrifices, and they understood that God had a plan in it.
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So that's truly a huge, significant portion of why the temple is so important for the
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Old Testament saints. Now, what is another reason that the purpose of the
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Old Testament temple was? Well, we understand in the New Testament in Hebrews chapter 10 verses 4 and also 11 through 12, it says that the offerings that they did in the temple never took away sins.
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It never ever did. So why were they doing it? Again, it pointed us to Jesus.
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It pointed us to Him over and over and over again. What's another purpose of the temple? Well, it was the express dwelling place of God Himself.
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As we know that only the high priests could enter into the holies of holies, no one else could. That's where God's presence was uniquely, divinely expressed in the world in the
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Old Testament. Now, where would we go to for this? That would be found in Exodus chapter 25 verse,
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Exodus I'm just going to read that real fast here as we understand what the Old Testament temple was for.
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Old Testament temple was for this purpose, Exodus 25 verse 8 says, "...and let them construct a sanctuary for me that I may dwell among them."
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This was to be a sanctuary for God so that He could dwell amongst His people of Israel. As we read in our call to worship today, that was the habitation of God.
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That was where, like I said, He was uniquely found in the Old Testament. Now, we would also see another important purpose of what the temple was for, is that it was a place for the priests to fulfill their priestly duty.
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God had given commands to the priests to do certain things, and this was a way and a means that they could do it.
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So when we come to the book of Haggai, one important thing we need to pay attention of is do they have a high priest in that day?
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Yes, they do. We see that He's writing to the son of that high priest. Is that high priest able to fulfill his obedience to God?
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Not without a temple. He's not being obedient to what God has told him to do as a high priest.
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So that's another very important thing that we would have, is that the temple was the means and the ways that the priests would fulfill their duty.
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The whole land of Israel would fulfill their duty through the means of the temple. Now, historically, the temple, the people of Haggai, have done none of this.
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They have not been obedient to God because there hasn't been a temple. Is there a temple pointing forward to Jesus in this text?
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No, there is not. Is there a temple where a priest can be offering sacrifices? No, there is not.
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Is there a temple where God can uniquely, expressly show Himself in the Old Testament?
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No, there is not in this text. It's absent from there. It's not there. And this is very, very concerning if you were in the
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Old Testament days. This is very, very wrong. There is no temple there in that day.
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So now, we today, as Christians, in the
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New Testament, that have never gone to the temple, and I'm not talking about the LDS temple, that is not even close, that is a synagogue of Satan.
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That is nothing like the temple in the Old Testament. So, why, how can we understand this idea of the temple?
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We have to look at this text in light of what that temple meant and represented for the people of that day.
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If we aren't doing that, we're not going to understand this book of Haggai at all. If we don't understand what the temple was in the
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Old Testament, we won't understand in its completeness the importance of the substance of those shadows, which again, that substance is
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Jesus Christ Himself. We will forget the importance of what Christ fulfilled when
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He says, all righteousness is fulfilled in Him. We won't understand that if we don't understand the shadow.
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We won't understand the substance if we don't understand the shadow. So now, let's go back here and read again
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Haggai 1, verse 2 here. Haggai 1, verse 2 says,
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As thus says the Lord of hosts, this people says that the time has not come even for the house of Yahweh to be rebuilt.
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The time has not come for this temple to be here in this land. I hope you understand how terrible that saying is now.
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How terrible of the people for it is then to say, this place, that is the unique place of God, is not to be rebuilt.
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It's terrible. That saying, that saying that God knew the people were saying at that day, this is a bad thing.
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This is not a good thing. If Daylen told his son Zach to build a meat processing place, would you be a little bit mad if only 20 years go by and only the foundation has been laid?
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I would imagine so. I would imagine so. But even more so, that has no significance in the means of what a temple is in the
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Old Testament. No, no, no, no even close comparison to those things.
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Now, why do we need to understand this Old Testament temple a little bit more? I think that something that we also need to understand is, since we understand the importance of the temple, let's go and see what happens at the crucifixion of Christ and what
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Christ says about the temple. Matthew chapter 23 verse 38 through 39, this is after the
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Jews have already rejected Christ after he's entered into the city upon the young donkey on the back there.
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This is the words of Christ unto the people of Israel, the Jewish Pharisees of this day. Christ says in Matthew 23 verse 38 through 39, after he is given what's called the seven woes to the people, he says,
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Behold your house. Notice the pronoun is Christ calling it his house,
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God's house. He's saying your house, the very house that was built by the people of Haggai in their day.
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That same temple that was the place dwelling place of God. Jesus is saying your house is being left to you.
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Desolate. For I say to you from now on, you shall not see me until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the
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Lord. And that comes from the Old Testament, the name of Yahweh to whom Christ took that very name.
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We don't understand the harshness of Christ's words here. If we don't understand the significance of the
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Old Testament temple, your house is being left to you. Desolate. What happens at the very crucifixion of Christ when he says to tell us to I upon there and pays the price of our sin.
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It says in Matthew chapter 27 verse 51 after he says that the after he gives up the spirit in verse 51 it says and behold the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and the earth shook and the rocks were split.
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Christ in the New Testament doesn't tell us to look to the temple any longer.
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Why? Because he is that substance. He is the better temple.
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He is the dwelling place of God. He is the sanctuary in this way. And this means he is the tabernacle.
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He is that very substance. How today, how is this substance brought about to us?
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Because we brothers and sisters, the temple just as the as the temple was very, very important to the people in the
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Old Testament. We don't have that same physical Old Testament temple today. How can we apply these things to us?
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How do we need to understand what the temple, the house of God is today for us? What is the purpose of these things for us?
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Well, we know as I have said multiple times now today, Christ being that substance, when he lived that perfect life that you and I could not live and he died the death that you and I deserve and he was buried and rose again on the third day.
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He built his better house. He built the better house.
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He built his holy temple and he is making us into these things. We looked here recently in Hebrews chapter three.
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We looked at this last week and we talked about it in our Bible studies. Hebrews chapter three at verse six.
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But Christ was faithful as a son over his house whose house we are. If we hold fast our confidence in the boast of our hope firm until the end.
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Christ is the builder of this house. Ephesians chapter two. We're going to be reading this text no doubt multiple times as we were in the book of Haggai, but Ephesians chapter two verse 19 through 22 says this.
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So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are the
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God of you are of God's household having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.
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Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building is being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the
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Lord in whom also you are being built together into a dwelling place of God, the spirit.
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This is truly amazing when we consider all the language that's being applied to us.
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You and I, I, I don't want you to think that this is not meant for us. This is you and I, that this is talking about God has made us a house and he's making us into a temple where God himself dwells.
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What is the purpose of this better temple, the house, the church, even if we could call it that, what is the purpose of these things?
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Firstly and chiefly, it is because the better, the better temple, the better house
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Christ is the foundation and the builder of it. That is the first reason that it is better.
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Did Christ delay 20 years after he'd received a command from God to do these things? No. We know that all the epics and the ages were always pointing center to the cross.
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Christ came at the perfect time to do these things. Christ is the better builder of these things.
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He's the better building. He's the better foundation. This house has a better and true sacrifice.
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Hebrews chapter 10 verse 12 after it says that the sacrifices of those priests in the old Testament couldn't ever take away sins.
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Christ himself died. He was offered up as the final sacrifice that truly took away our sins.
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And not only this, but we'd also see that we as the Christians, we as the believer in the people of God are the dwelling place of God today because we are being built into a temple.
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We would see this in first Corinthians chapter three, verse 16, where we are said that your body is a temple, a dwelling place of the
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Holy Spirit. Again, if we don't understand what the old Testament meant to the people, we don't understand the seriousness of that saying itself.
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Your body is a temple dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. This is amazing text, brothers and sisters.
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We have to understand the significance of this dwelling place of God.
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Why is this the better temple today that we have in its substance? Well, we understand that we have a better high priest than what those priests were in the old
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Testament. Now, Haggai chapter one, verse two.
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Again, were those people, the prophets, the priests and the kings, were they able to be truly obedient to God in a day where the temple didn't exist?
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They weren't able to fulfill their duties to God because those things were absent. They only had a foundation there.
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Now, as we read earlier, and we made mention of just recently, Christ is that foundation, the apostles built upon that cornerstone.
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How today then, as the church, if we are the people of God, we are the house of Yahweh, if we are the temple itself in the
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New Testament, how are we as the church to fulfill our duty?
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We're going to end here. And like I said, I hope this message is an anchoring point for us so when we read the rest of Haggai, we understand how we can apply this text to ourselves.
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The temple has been rebuilt through the cross and we are being built into that temple itself.
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This people says the time has not come even for the time of the house of the Yahweh to be rebuilt.
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I want to read Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13, verses 15 through 21.
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Hebrews chapter 13, verses 15 through 21. Please listen to this text very, very thoroughly.
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Through him, this is speaking about us going through Christ, through him, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips, that giving thanks to his name, and do not neglect doing good and sharing for which such sacrifices
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God is pleased. Obey your leaders or overseers and submit to them for they keep watch over your souls.
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And those who will give an account, let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable to you.
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Pray for us, for we are sure that we are of a good conscience desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things.
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And I urge you all the more to do this that I may be restored to you sooner. Now the
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God of peace who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even
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Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.
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Amen. I'm so thankful we're going through the book of Hebrews for Bible study, and I'm excited to get through this to this chapter, hopefully in somewhat of the near future.
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We are only in chapter three currently. What does it say here and list out for us that as a part of this better house of God that we can do as sacrament, that we can do a service to God because brothers and sisters, we don't have, we can't say we don't have a temple that we can't be obedient to God through today.
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We can't say that we do have a temple. We've read it over and over again. Christ is that temple. We are the temple.
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We are the people that are doing service in that temple today. What does it list out here that we as the church, as believers in God can do?
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I've written these things out that I just saw here. Sacrifice praise fruit in our speech, in our thanksgiving, we can serve
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God doing good, sharing with one another submission to overseers or leaders.
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We can do this in causing joy. We do this through prayer. We do this through our conduct.
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We do this through our desire. And even better than all these things, I just counted that was 12 things
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I listed just from this short text we read there that we can do as service to God in his temple today.
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What's even better than this is those people in the Old Testament didn't have the temple yet to do this service to God.
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What does it say for us here that Christ has done for us? He has equipped us, you, in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.
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Amen. Brothers and sisters, please do not be saying to yourselves throughout this week, the time has not yet come to do service unto the
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Lord. You are members of the temple and you have been given a duty to do that which
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God has commanded you to do. And not only this, but he has equipped you with the means to do those things.
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Do not be ignorant of these things, do not ignore them, but do them in good heart and service.
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Let us pray. Lord God, I do thank you so much for what that Old Testament temple was and how it teaches us and helps us to understand more about you today.
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God, I do pray that you would help us understand the significance of us having the better, us having the substance, us looking back and seeing your cross for God.
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I thank you for being the builder, the justifier, the sacrifice, the priest, the prophet, the king.
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Lord, I thank you for all those things that you are and that you have done for us, Lord. God, we have entered into something far better than anything in the
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Old Testament could ever have, Lord. God, let us not let us not forget this,
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God. Let us conduct ourselves in such a way that we do remember these things and that we glorify you in them,
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Lord. And God, let us just have a blessed rest of this evening today. Let us glorify you and let this food that we're about to participate within and shared meal and potluck,
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Lord, I just pray that you would be glorified in them and our bodies would be in good health from them,
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Lord. God, we just lift these things up to you and say these things in your name, Jesus Christ, amen.